Zionism

The
story of the serpent, the woman, and the man and the story of Cain and Abel
mirror each other in a variety of ways. The two narratives also differ from each other from a number of points of view. I began to explore commonalities and differences in a previous
post. Interpretation which concentrates on similarities but overlooks differences runs the risk of missing the point of a particular passage entirely.

In the first narrative, the man breaks faith with God, and the soil is
cursed on his account. It now yields goodness by dint of pain and exertion, and
thorn and thistle abound. In the second narrative, after Cain’s crime, pain and sweat are no longer
sufficient to allow him to eke out a living from it. It gets worse from there. He
is banished not only from God’s presence, but from the presence of his fellows. But that is not the most basic point of the story. A red thread runs through the book of Genesis, a buried lede if you will.

In a previous
post, I began to explore features of Genesis 3:14-19. This post continues
that exploration, and widens the horizon to include 4:6-12. As Simon Holloway noted in a comment to the previous post, the
second passage is symmetrical to the first. The passages are also asymmetrical.
Whilst it is standard procedure to note textual symmetries, it is no less
important to notice asymmetries.

In 3:15, the battle
between serpentkind (a personification of temptation) and womankind is
described as one which will be perpetual. The emphasis is on serpentkind having
the wherewithal to do but limited harm to womankind. In 4:7, the same battle is
described again. The emphasis is placed on humanity having the wherewithal to
dominate sin. Sin is described in utterly convincing phenomenological terms as a being
which lurks at the door.

3:15 and 4:7 complement one another. In the battle with temptation and sin, God tilts the
playing field in favor of humanity. Will humanity exploit the fact so as to
master the situation? The drama lies therein. Here is the Hebrew:

Genesis 3:14-19 is a
fascinating text. My purpose here is to demonstrate a principle of
interpretation: textual symmetries and asymmetries interact with each
other in the construction of meaning. It is standard procedure to note textual symmetries.
But if the asymmetries go unnoticed, the sense of the whole goes
unrecognized. Here is the Hebrew:

In a delightful interview
granted to Reform Judaism magazine, Tamara Cohn Eskenazi, HUC-JIR Professor of Bible,
makes an acute observation in which it becomes evident that NRSV messes up
badly in its translation of Genesis 3:16-17:

Please give us an
example of a biblical portion whose translation has had profound gender
implications.

Take the story about the
first woman and man. The best-known and oldest English translation of the Bible,
the King James Version of 1611, translated Genesis 3:16–17 accurately: “Unto
the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow
thou shalt bring forth children...” (Genesis 3:16). “And unto Adam he said...cursed
is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it...” (Genesis 3:17). Later
translations, however, intensified the hardship of the woman while toning down
that of the man. Thus the New Revised Standard Version translation (1989) reads:
“To the woman he said, ‘I will greatly increase your pangs in childbearing; in
pain you shall bring forth children,...’ And to the man he said, ‘...cursed is
the ground because of you; in toil you shall eat of it....’” Using the words
“pangs” and “pain” gives the impression that woman is meant to suffer, while
translating the very same Hebrew word as “toil” when it comes to the man gives
the impression that the man only has to work hard. Our commentary makes it
clear that God’s pronouncements hold the woman and man equally responsible.

“Our commentary” is The
Torah: A Women’s Commentary (URJ Press), of which Tamara Cohn Eskenazi is editor.

The multi-authored work is due out in
December of this year. At last year's SBL Annual Meeting, a sample page was handed out. I look forward to its publication.

I’ve just started using a CanoScan LiDE 70 to make PDFs of things. I like
the fact that it is lightweight, that it works off my plugged-in laptop, and
that one can press a book down quite hard in order to ensure that double pages
in thick books are legible on the inside margins. Here is an example. The pages
are from the TOB, one of my favorite study Bibles.

I don’t like how noisy it is, and I wish it were faster. I wish I knew
which portable scanner on the market is the fastest and quietest. That would be
the one to get.

UPDATE: Iyov’s follow-up post
to his comment below is well worth reading.

I don’t know about yours, but my Sunday afternoons tend to be double- or
triple-booked, so I missed this lecture about an important 14th-century Franciscan scholar's commentary on the entire Bible and his profound debt to precedent Jewish exegesis:

Wrestling with Rashi

Deeana Copeland Klepper

Sunday, August 26 at 3 pm

Asher Library, Spertus College

Chicago, llinois

As the lecture notice
states, the most popular Christian Bible commentary in late
medieval and early modern Europe was Nicholas of Lyra's Postilla Litteralis Super Totam
Bibliam, a vast work that incorporated Jewish interpretation,
especially that of Rashi, into commentary on the Hebrew Bible. (According to the
notice, Nicholas also made use of Rashi in interpreting the New Testament,
which may be true, but not something I’ve seen documented.)

To paraphrase a preview
article by Martina Sheehan, 600 years ago, a Franciscan scholar from a
small town in Normandy crouched over his Bible and peeled away a millennium’s worth of questionable
interpretation in hopes of arriving at a truer, more literal understanding of
God’s word.

I paraphrase rather than quote Sheehan, because
she claims that Nicholas had a fundamentalist approach to Bible study, a
manifest absurdity. If Nicholas was a fundamentalist, then so was Rashi, and
please, give me more of that old-time religion.

Sheehan is right when she notes that
Nicholas’s approach to the study of the Bible would change Christianity forever. De Lyra's commentary contributed to the rediscovery of the sensus
litteralis of the Bible among Christians in the high Middle Ages, an indispensable foundation of Luther, Zwingli,
Bucer, and Calvin’s 16th-century Reformation efforts. As the famous ditty goes:

Si Lyra non lyrasset, Lutherus non saltasset.

The occasion of Klepper’s lecture: the
Asher Library and Newberry Library's joint acquisition of a rare 1481 edition
of the Postilla, a thick leatherbound tome containing de Lyra’s
commentary and literal interpretation along with
illustrative diagrams of details of the Hebrew Bible and New Testament.
As Paul Saenger, the Newberry’s curator of rare books, emphasizes, the illustrations
are based on the 11th-century Jewish scholar Rashi’s drawings, many of which have
been lost in the Hebrew manuscript tradition. Very cool.

For images, go here. Here is the relevant page from the Newberry Library's site. For more
samples of Nicholas’s work, go here, here, and here.

Klepper is well-qualified to
broach the topic. A picture is worth a thousand words, so here goes.

She has just published a volume entitled The Insight of
Unbelievers: Nicholas of Lyra and Christian Reading of Jewish Text in the Later
Middle Ages (Jewish Culture and Context Series; Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2007). For more
information, go here. Note also her essay
entitled, “Nicholas of Lyra and Franciscan Interest in Hebrew
Scholarship,” in Nicholas of
Lyra: The Senses of Scripture (ed. Philip Krey and
Lesley Smith; Leiden: Brill, 2000) 289-311.

That’s the title of a thoughtful review of The God Delusion (Richard Dawkins) by Steven Plaut.
Written from the point of view of someone who
lives and breathes the Israeli intellectual landscape, it is especially
interesting for that reason. Plaut concludes by citing a phrase in Hebrew Isaac
Newton wrote in his own hand on the original of one his scientific papers. I
didn’t know that the great physicist knew Hebrew (prayerbook Hebrew, to be
precise). You don’t say.

I thought it’d be fun to compile a list of bloggers who will be
presenting in one or more SBL sessions in San Diego in November. I have also included a few scholars
who may not blog, but who have a strong presence online via sites they
administer or contribute to.

A few preliminary comments.

The really smart people don’t present at SBL. They come to schmooze, buy
books at a discount, and get another look at Jim West.

A big mistake is to submit two paper proposals in the hopes of getting
one accepted, only to have them both be accepted. This has happened two years
in a row in my case. It really isn’t necessary. Some of us just want to feel
useful, I guess.

How’s that for a title? I really believe he is, but not for the reasons
I’ve heard so far.

What would Hector Avalos have us do, after all? Here is a choice quote
from his latest book:

"Our purpose is to excise from modern life what little of the Bible
is being used and also to eliminate the potential use of any sacred scripture
in the modern world."

It’s nice to know that Avalos is an equal-opportunity despiser of sacred
scriptures. Note the implied equivalences: modern life / modern world = advanced,
evolved; Bible / any sacred scripture = retarded, dangerous.

I now propose to demonstrate how simple-minded Hector’s proposal is. One
example will suffice.

The Bible can be read from a tradition-neutral point of view, at least in
theory, but even those who attempt to do so will often also read the text
from a point of view internal to a specific Jewish or Christian tradition. Students
who wish to understand the Bible from the point of view of a specific tradition
are well-advised to consider purchasing one or more of the following study Bibles [but see Iyov's comment below; I thank Iyov, E-S., and Doug Chaplin [check out his relevant comments] for their input; the original post has now been revised for the better]:

(5) Zondervan NIV Study Bible. Kenneth L. Barker, general editor. Donald W. Burdick, John H. Stek, Walter W. Wessel, Ronald F.
Youngblood, associate editors. New
International Version. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2004 [first edition: 1985]. Evangelical. The 2002 / 2004 editions
represent an improvement over earlier editions. The notes to this Study Bible are translation-neutral to a
large extent, insofar as they also grace the pages of a NASB study Bible. For
further details, go here.
Many other evangelical study Bibles are available, of a more
confessional or of a more devotional nature.

The following study Bibles, all excellent, are written from a tradition-neutral point of view. In reality, it is probably better to speak of a tradition of another kind, that of historical-critical scholarship, whose methods are utilized by a large number of scholars of various religious persuasions or none:

Believing is KnowingComments on things like prophecy, predestination, and reward and punishment from an orthodox Jewish perspective, by David Guttmann

Ben Byerly's Blogthoughts on the Bible, Africa, Kenya, aid, and social justice, by Ben Byerly, a PhD candidate at Africa International University (AIU), in Nairobi, Kenya working on “The Hopes of Israel and the Ends of Acts” (Luke’s narrative defense of Paul to Diaspora Judeans in Acts 16-20)

C. OrthodoxyChristian, Contemporary, Conscientious… or Just Confused, by Ken Brown, a very thoughtful blog (archive). Ken is currently a Dr. Theol. student at Georg-August-Universität in Göttingen, part of The Sofja-Kovalevskaja Research Group studying early Jewish Monotheism. His dissertation will focus on the presentation of God in Job.

Catholic Biblesa thoughtful blog about Bible translations by Timothy, who has a degree in sacred theology from the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas in Rome (Angelicum) and teaches theology in a Catholic high school in Michigan

Chrisendomirreverent blog with a focus on the New Testament, by Chris Tilling, New Testament Tutor for St Mellitus College and St Paul's Theological Centre, London

Claude Mariottinia perspective on the Old Testament and current events by a professor of Old Testament at Northern Baptist Theological Seminary, Chicagoland, Illinois

Codex: Biblical Studies Blogspotby Tyler Williams, a scholar of the Hebrew Bible and cognate literature, now Assistant Professor of Theology at The King's University College in Edmonton, Alberta (archive)

Colours of Scripturereflections on theology, philosophy, and literature, by Benjamin Smith, afflicted with scriptural synaesthesia, and located in London, England

ComplegalitarianA team blog that discusses right ways and wrong ways Scripture might help in the social construction of gender (old archive only; more recent archive, unfortunately, no longer publicly available)

Connected Christianitya place to explore what it might be like if Christians finally got the head, heart, and hands of their faith re-connected (archive)

Conversational TheologySmart and delightful comment by Ros Clarke, a Ph.D. student at the University of the Highlands and Islands, at the (virtual) Highland Theological College (archive)

Daily HebrewFor students of biblical Hebrew and the ancient Near East, by Chip Hardy, a doctoral student at the University of Chicago

Daniel O. McClellana fine blog by the same, who is pursuing a master of arts degree in biblical studies at Trinity Western University just outside of Vancouver, BC.

Davar AkherLooking for alternative explanations: comments on things Jewish and beyond, by Simon Holloway, a PhD student in Classical Hebrew and Biblical Studies at The University of Sydney, Australia

Evedyahuexcellent comment by Cristian Rata, Lecturer in Old Testament of Torch Trinity Graduate School of Theology, Seoul, Korea

Exegetica Digitadiscussion of Logos high-end syntax and discourse tools – running searches, providing the downloads (search files) and talking about what can be done and why it might matter for exegesis, by Mike Heiser

Law, Prophets, and Writingsthoughtful blogging by William R. (Rusty) Osborne, Assistant Professor of Biblical and Theological Studies as College of the Ozarks and managing editor for Journal for the Evangelical Study of the Old Testament

Lingamishdelightful fare by David Ker, Bible translator, who also lingalilngas.

old testament passionGreat stuff from Anthony Loke, a Methodist pastor and Old Testament lecturer in the Seminari Theoloji, Malaysia

Old Testament Pseudepigrapha BlogA weblog created for a course on the Old Testament Pseudepigrapha at the University of St. Andrews, Scotland, by James Davila (archive)

On the Main LineMississippi Fred MacDowell's musings on Hebraica and Judaica. With a name like that you can't go wrong.

p.ost an evangelical theology for the age to comeseeking to retell the biblical story in the difficult transition from the centre to the margins following the collapse of Western Christendom, by Andrew Perriman, independent New Testament scholar, currently located in Dubai

PaleoJudaicaby James Davila, professor of Early Jewish Studies at the University of St. Andrews, St Andrews, Scotland. Judaism and the Bible in the news; tidbits about ancient Judaism and its context

Serving the Wordincisive comment on the Hebrew Bible and related ancient matters, with special attention to problems of philology and linguistic anthropology, by Seth L. Sanders, Assistant Professor in the Religion Department of Trinity College, Hartford, CT

Targumanon biblical and rabbinic literature, Christian theology, gadgetry, photography, and the odd comic, by Christian Brady, associate professor of ancient Hebrew and Jewish literature and dean of the Schreyer Honors College at Penn State

The Biblia Hebraica Bloga blog about Hebrew Bible/Old Testament, the history of the Ancient Near East and the classical world, Syro-Palestinian archaeology, early Judaism, early Christianity, New Testament interpretation, English Bible translations, biblical theology, religion and culture, philosophy, science fiction, and anything else relevant to the study of the Bible, by Douglas Magnum, PhD candidate, University of the Free State, South Africa

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